The sea was certainly smooth, and the passage began under the best auspices. The moon was near setting and threw strange gleams on the rock of Capo Figari, which suggested a cyclopean sentinel guarding the melancholy sleep of the abandoned isle. Good-bye! good-bye! island of exile and of dream! Anania remained motionless leaning on the rail of the deck till the last vision of Capo Figari had disappeared and the little scattered islets which rose blue from the waves like petrified clouds, were absorbed into the vaporous distance. Then he sat on a little bench, and scornfully rubbed tears from his eyes. Battista Daga, his companion, who was always sea-sick no matter what the condition of the sea, soon retired. Anania remained alone on the deck, numbed by the damp breeze, and saw the moon, red like molten iron, sink into a turbid and sanguinous distance. At last he too turned in, but was long ere he slept. He felt as if his body were incessantly growing longer and shorter. An interminable line of carts seemed crossing over his torpid person. The most unpleasant recollections of his life came into his head. The clashing of the waves cut by the keel seemed the wind in the widow's cottage at Fonni. Oh what a vain, useless, odious thing was life! What was the good of living at all? However at last sleep vanquished his sufferings. In the morning he felt another person, agile, strong, happy! He had closed his eyes on a gloomy grief-stricken land, on livid waves and a bloody moon. He awakened in a sea of gold, in a land of light. He was close to Rome. Rome! His heart beat with joy. Rome! Rome! Eternal country, mother and lover, siren and friend, healer of all sorrows, river of oblivion, fountain of promise, abyss of every ill, source of every good! Anania felt ready for the conquest of the world. Civita Vecchia was black and damp under the morning sky, but it seemed picturesque and beautiful to him. Daga, who had been on the continent for a year, smiled at his companion's enthusiasm.